Media laws, Chaney, Vic blowouts, Tassie

4. Feisty Nats to roll Howard's media ownership laws?

By Stephen Mayne

Here's a prediction: the angry National Party senators will block Helen Coonan's new media ownership laws in an early reprisal move following the defection of Julian McGauran to the Liberal Party.

The Nats were always considered vulnerable on media ownership reforms because mega-mergers will inevitably lead to reduced services in RARA areas, something Southern Cross Broadcasting demonstrated in 2001 when it closed its news services in Cairns, Canberra, Townsville, Darwin and Alice Springs after a series of takeovers.

The big five media companies are salivating at the prospect of the first major mergers in almost 20 years, but the Howard cabinet would be advised to offer up a minimalist model in a couple of weeks, in light of the new tension in the coalition.

Media policy really has been a joke over the last ten years. Channel Ten's blatant breach of foreign-ownership restrictions, the cow-towing to Rupert Murdoch after his departure to the US, the datacasting debacles, stacking the ABC board and appointing Jonathan Shier, the sweetheart deals for the Packer family and the fact that Alan Jones remained on the air after the cash for comment inquiry make for a catalogue of compromises and failures.

Similarly, doddering David Flint was finally forced out of the ABA way back in June 2004 and it took the Cabinet 19 months to come up with Chris Chapman as the new head of the expanded regulator ACMA.

Chapman is a straight shooter who knows how to deal with government after the Dalrymple Bay bottle necks last year. All those attacks on Peter Beattie led by Peter Costello over the bottleknocks helped Chapman's then employer, Prime Infrastructure, extract bigger price rises out of the Queensland regulator.

It would be interesting to know what sort of contact there was between Chapman and Costello's office during this period.

Chapman's only overt conservative association was being a judge's associate to Sir Garfield Barwick from 1978-80. However, he would have worked with the PM's brother Stan when he was in the Sydney office of Mallesons in the early 1980s.

That said, I've had a couple of brief dealings with him over the years and he seems to be both competent and a straight shooter, something you could not say about the PM's great mate, David Flint.

Let's hope Chapman's appointment ends up being a rare sensible move by a government that has mishandled media policy from start to finish. What odds Coonan will overplay her hand and end up getting rolled in the Senate, yet again, just as Richard Alston did during the last attempt four years ago.


6. Michael Chaney risks a Costello dummy spit

By Stephen Mayne

Former Wesfarmers CEO Michael Chaney has replaced Hugh Morgan as President of the Business Council and immediately gone on the front foot, accusing Peter Costello and Federal Treasury of deliberately under-estimating the strength of the budget and claiming this has undermined the case for comprehensive tax reform.

Chaney gave his story to the papers on Sunday and attracted front-page treatment, but Cossie didn't take it lying down, allowing Treasury Secretary Dr Ken Henry to reply with a detailed three page letter.

Chaney is certainly right about the serial inaccuracy of Treasury's forecasts, but linking this with the failure to reform the tax system is debatable, although it is generally accepted that any comprehensive reform requires billions of dollars to smooth the way.

The Howard Cabinet is more available to the media than any other in the world, so it was quite unusual for Cossie to hide behind his chief bureaucrat yesterday, although Chaney's attack was aimed at both the Treasury and Treasurer.

Cossie is clearly annoyed about the tax campaign which has been led by The Australian and Malcolm Turnbull. The Australian has certainly received no favours from Treasury over its FOI campaign which will be decided by the High Court in Sydney on Friday.

As for Malcolm Turnbull, well he was famously laughed at by Cossie on the Today show last year and has now been effectively gagged on tax in his new role as the PM's parliamentary secretary.

So what does that mean for Michael Chaney, the new chairman of National Australia Bank and chairman-in-waiting of Woodside Petroleum, the very company that Costello controversially protected from a Shell takeover in 2001.

Well, how ironic is it that Chaney was yesterday telling NAB shareholders at the AGM in Sydney that Cossie's APRA has been playing it very tough with the regulatory straitjacket, applied after the $360 million foreign exchange disasters, that will remain in place for at least another year.

NAB was hoping to be free by now, but only 65% of APRA's 81 demands have been met and another 28 remain in force and this is contributing to its market capitalisation deficit behind our new biggest bank, CBA, which was last night capitalised at $57.3 billion, compared with $53.8 billion for NAB.

Chaney would be well advised not to pay Costello a visit to try and heavy APRA at the moment. And if the Treasurer really wanted to put Chaney in his place, he could help fund comprehensive tax reform in the budget by lifting the resource rent tax holiday enjoyed by Woodside's giant North-West Shelf project. Now that would really hurt!

Whether its petty things like banning Crikey from last year's budget lock-up, or his notorious call to a bank CEO threatening adverse regulatory outcomes if his chief economist wasn't hauled into line, a glass jaw is now widely known to be a key character flaw of our wannabe prime minister.

This extends to never admitting mistakes. He refused to take a backward step during the Rob Gerard affair and also appears to be holding out against comprehensive tax reform, probably because it would be an admission that not enough has been done in the previous 10 budgets.

The problem with taking on Chaney is that he's backed by the top 100 CEOs in the country through the BCA. Any open warfare would then hit Liberal Party corporate donations, which will be revealed for 2004-05 in all their glory at 9am tomorrow on the AEC website.

Cossie should remember that comprehensive tax reform would deliver a flood of donations and the Liberal Party certainly needs them with 5 state elections coming up in the next 15 months.


11. Victoria – the blowout capital of Australia

By Stephen Mayne

Any Victorian watching the Australian Open men's final on Sunday night couldn't have missed the avalanche of expensive taxpayer funded ads extolling the virtues of the Bracks government and the "world class performances" it presides over.

They even had Melbourne Airport CEO Chris Barlow openly praising the unions for their part in widening the runway, which isn't exactly the most complex major project in the world.

Sadly, there is a huge difference between the line taken in these blatantly political election year ads and the reality, because Victoria's status as the blowout capital of Australia was confirmed once again yesterday.

Perth-based Iluka is facing a $105 million claim by Downer-EDI's Roche Mining division over blowouts in producing the $200 million Douglas mineral sands project in north-west Victoria. As usual in the state with the most bloody-minded building unions, a company is facing a 50% cost blowout. As The Australian noted in its story today, "Roche has also suffered from industrial disputes."

This is just the latest in a long line of blowouts that have hit the Victorian budget and undermined Victoria's overall economic performance as The Age's Paul Austin duly noted on 19 January when trotting out all the gloomy figures provided by the state opposition.

For the record, here are some other examples of how difficult it is to deliver a major project in Victoria:

Regional rail projects: $80 million to $750 million
Commonwealth Games: $397 million to $700 million and counting
Spencer Street: $200 million blowout for private consortium
Synchrotron: $100 million to $220 million
Federation Square: $100 million to $462 million
MCG redevelopment: blowout of more than $100 million
Yolla gas field: Origin's $400 million Bass Strait project is late and way over budget with court action against Clough

We'll expand this into a more comprehensive list that covers the past 30 years so send any other examples to smayne@crikey.com.au. For instance, Mainline collapsed in 1974 after union bloody-mindedness contributed to costs blowing out at Collins Place (from about $80 million to $250 million). And the promised $1.6 billion Crown Casino ended up costing about $2.2 billion as well.


15. Going backwards from state politics to local government

By Stephen Mayne, former member Melbourne University Liberal Club

We had some excellent entries to our list of politicians who started out in student politics yesterday but no-one gets near the most capable of the remaining Democrat senators whose citation reads as follows:

Andrew Murray: the Democrat senator for WA was a member of Rhodes University (South Africa) SRC in 1967 and 1968. Vice President of the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) 1968. Deported back to Rhodesia late 1968 as a result of his anti-apartheid activities.

Other big names who rose to the top of their universities include Malcolm Turnbull, Julia Gillard, Kim Beazley and even Robert Menzies.

The list of politicians who started out in local government is also really getting some momentum now, with more than 120 entries, and we're starting a new one looking at those who did the reverse. Here are six names to kick it off, but we acknowledge that some of them started in local government, then rose to state level before returning for a second crack in division three:

Going backwards into local government:

Ivan Dean: the Windermere MLC in the Tasmanian Parliament was last year also elected Mayor of Launceston

Peter Macdonald: the former Manly independent in the state parliament is now Manly mayor

Clover Moore: from independent member for Bligh in the NSW Parliament to Sydney Lord Mayor

George Pacuilo: from the NSW Parliament to Labor's Mayor of Liverpool

Ivan Petch: State member for Gladesville, defeated in 1995 by John Watkins, later became mayor of Ryde

Wayne Philips: former state Liberal MLA from Eltham in the Victorian parliament and now Mayor of Banyule City Council.

As with all these lists, keep the corrections and additions coming to smayne@crikey.com.au


34. The rise and rise of Tasmania

By Stephen Mayne

The regular Tuesday morning chat with ABC Tasmania morning host Tim Cox kicked off for 2006 today. We had an interesting discussion about the rising influence of the Apple Isle on the world stage.

After all, the MCC has just appointed Tasmania's former cricket captain Keith Bradshaw to take up the reins at Lord's as the new CEO. The BBC, The Times and The Daily Telegraph have all covered the appointment.

Then you've got future Danish Queen Mary Donaldson's rising standing in the European royalty pecking order, and even events like Tasmania's licensing of Betfair causing upheaval in racing across the country.

Add to that the deification of Boonie by these latest Foster's ads, Ricky Ponting's ongoing strong performance as Australian captain, the presence of Gunns in the ASX 200 and even the ACCC's partial Tasmanian rationale for blocking Toll's bid for Patrick and we have plenty of examples of Tasmania's rising power and prominence.

Glenn Milne over-cooked the argument in The Australian on Monday, but is certainly true that the Tasmanian forestry debate was a vital factor in Labor's loss at the 2004 federal election. And as this Tim Cox interview demonstrates, another Tasmanian, Michael Palmer, is CEO of the world's biggest sporting event, the 2010 soccer world cup in South Africa.

By jingo, not since it produced Errol Flynn, has Tasmania enjoyed such global pre-eminence. Aunty is getting all excited about podcasting these days and you can listen to this morning's "Crikey Chronicles" with Tim Cox here if you like.

Copyright © 2024 The Mayne Report. All rights reserved

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